Chapter 5

The eyesof the vampire who slapped me turn into mirrors as he catches Bernard's gaze.

"You will go into the kitchen and sit for ten minutes," he says in a honey-laced voice with a slight Scottish accent. "Afterward, you'll forget we were ever here. Understood?"

"Yes," Bernard says in the robotic tone people tend to take on under glamour. "I'll go."

"And forget," the vamp says.

"And forget." Shamelessly flashing us his hairy body, Bernard lumbers to his destination.

I do my best to get my racing pulse under control. "What's this about?" Taking out my hand sanitizer, I apply a generous amount to my slapped cheeks and touched arm. Who knows where that vampire's hands have been? "I was in the middle of something."

"We're here on behalf of the Council," says the tallest of the bunch, an unusually unattractive specimen of his kind. His hooked nose sits above a thin, downturned mouth, and his brown hair is limp and greasy-looking. However, his pale eyes hold an intense sort of intelligence.

"It's probably true," Felix whispers. "That's Kain, the new leader of the Enforcers. I remember him because of the Legacy of Kain. He even looks a little like the guy in that game series."

I'd tell Felix to shut it, but I don't want to give away his presence. No reason for him to go down as my accomplice.

"Why does the Council wish to see me?" I ask in a tone so calm it surprises even me.

"You will only speak when spoken to," growls the vampire who slapped me earlier.

"No need to be rude, Firth," Kain says to his lackey. He shifts his pale gaze to me. "I'm afraid you'll have to appear in front of the Council to learn more."

I count at least a dozen vampires around me. Not good. "Do I have to?"

"If you want to live," Kain says without emotion.

"Okay, then. I guess I'm dying to go."

He tips his head. "Put the contents of your pockets on the bed."

For a fleeting moment, I consider fighting my way out. Why else did I learn all those martial arts in the dreams of renowned masters? The problem is that vampires are much stronger and faster, not to mention I'm completely outnumbered.

Not looking at Pom, lest they realize he's contraband from another world, I take out the sleeping grenade, my Earth smartphone, my Gomorran comms, and the vial of diluted vampire blood. I gingerly place it all on the wrinkled sheets, which are still warm from Bernard.

"I should check her," Firth says—overeagerly, in my opinion.

"Don't," Kain says imperiously. He strides over to poke in my stuff. Right away, he homes in on my Gomorran comms. "This is Otherland technology. It's forbidden to bring it to Earth."

"Oops." I grimace. "I didn't show it to any locals, I swear."

Kain nods at Firth, and the thin vamp crushes the device in his fist and pockets the broken pieces. What an ass. I'm glad I didn't bring my pricey hygieia wand from home. Earth hand sanitizers are infinitely worse at germ-killing, but at least they shouldn't be confiscated.

I'm about to snap at Kain for destroying my property—comms aren't exactly cheap, either—but Felix whispers into my earpiece, "He just did you a huge favor. If the Council caught you with that, you'd be in major trouble—well, more trouble than whatever you've gotten yourself into already."

Fine. Maybe he's right. Being an Earth native, Felix knows all the dumb rules here much better than I do.

Kain examines my phone before homing in on the grenade.

"That's to help with my work," I say quickly. "It puts people to sleep."

He puts down the grenade and picks up the vial. Uncorking it, he takes a sniff and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

I feel my blood rush to my face. "It's not what you think it's for."

His eyebrow lifts higher.

"I only use that to suppress the need to sleep."

His eyebrow goes back down. "I thought even dreamwalkers needed sleep to survive."

I shrug, resisting the urge to point out the irony of a vampire lecturing me about blood consumption.

"You can have those back." Kain gestures at the bed.

I sanitize the phone, the vial, and the grenade before stuffing them back into my pockets. At this rate, I might need another bottle of sanitizer, unless they kill me soon and render that point moot. And since I'm already on this morbid train of thought, I hope they sterilize the sword or ax they plan to behead me with, a bit like humans do with needles for their lethal injections. One thing's for sure: There's no way these vampires are going to be willing to stop by a pharmacy for more hand sanitizer, even if it's on the way.

Firth catches my gaze with his beady eyes and mouths something that looks suspiciously like blood whore—a derogatory term for a vampire addict, which I'm not. Hopefully.

Either way, it's official: From here on out, Firth is Filth, though perhaps I'll only call him that behind his back, for safety reasons.

"What was in that vial?" Felix whispers.

Glad the diluted solution looks more like water than blood, I ignore his question. It's not like I'm in a position to answer him, anyway.

The vampires escort me out to a limo, and we drive down the night streets of Manhattan at race car speeds.

"I hacked into the limo's GPS," Felix informs me. "They're going to the Council castle, just as they claimed."

Good to know. Now if only I knew whether that's good news or bad news.

Since Felix doesn't say more, I stare out the car window to stay sane. We're passing Times Square, one of the busiest parts of this city. It can't compare to even the quietest street back on Gomorrah, but the hustle and bustle makes me feel at home. Except there are no humans on Gomorrah—which is what all these people are.

It's mind-boggling. The Cognizant make up less than one percent of Earth's population, but from what I know about this world's homo sapiens, if they learned of beings with powers like ours, they'd see us as a threat and act accordingly. I don't know if they'd catch us for vivisection or simply wipe us out, but I'm sure the outcome wouldn't be fun. This is why we keep our existence under strict secrecy, going as far as enforcing the silence with a barbaric practice called the Mandate, which decrees death to anyone dumb enough to blab about the Cognizant on advanced human-dominated worlds like Earth.

Maybe that's what the vamps want. Have I been on this world long enough to need the stupid Mandate Rite? I thought you were supposed to request it—and plan to settle on Earth, to boot. I doubt you'd get escorted to the ceremony like a VIP.

Felix yawns into my earpiece. I could strangle him right now. The last thing I need is for my sleep deprivation symptoms to resurface.

He yawns again.

That does it. I sneak my hand into my pocket, pull out my phone, and stealthily text, Take a nap.

"What?" Felix says. "I'm not going to—"

Please, I text. I hide my phone before Filth sees me and breaks it like he did with the Gomorran comms.

"You sure?" my friend mumbles.

Turning so the vampires can't see, I show my lapel camera a thumbs-up and clasp my hands as if in prayer.

"Okay, fine," he whispers. "If they're really taking you to see the Council, there's not much I can do for you, anyway."

Great. I'm so much calmer now.

When we get outside the city, I decide Bernard has had enough time to go back to bed. That means I can return to his dreams, finish my job, and email Valerian with the account number of Mom's hospital on Gomorrah. Hopefully he'll still pay if I'm dead. I'm hoping I'll live, though. The money from this gig will only cover the outstanding bills, not her future stay.

But that's enough worrying.

It's dreamwalking time.

There are many ways to get into dreams. The classic method is to fall asleep myself, which could be tough thanks to the vampire blood I've ingested and all this existential dread. The strategy I've used more often lately is to touch a dreamer—like my legit therapy clients, illegal job targets à la Bernard, and most often, Pom, the looft on my wrist.

I stealthily slide one hand toward Pom. The last thing I want is to draw attention to his existence. As a looft, Pom spends ninety-nine percent of his life in REM sleep, providing me with a gateway into the dream world that's always at my fingertips. Well, almost always—he is, on a super-rare occasion, awake. Though you wouldn't be able to tell by looking at him in the waking world. Here, he's a fur bracelet regardless.

Stroking him to soothe myself, I concentrate on my intent to go into his dream.

Just like when I touch any other sleeper, my muscles tense and relax, I smell ozone, and I experience the sensation of falling as the limo around me darkens and the world of wakefulness goes bye-bye.